Swimming at Hilton Brown

It's been a fun few weeks of swimming lessons at Hilton Brown. Everyone in Room 16 has shown improvement in their style and water confidence.

Well done everyone! One week of swimming to go!

Clever Character Descriptions

Over the part few weeks we have been exploring ways to describe characters. We read some fantastic character descriptions from our favourite authors, and then decided what we needed to do to write successful descriptions too. Our success criteria included: Good character descriptions might have-
1. plenty of specific adjectives (describe nouns- e.g. spiky)
2. similes
3. metaphors
4. alliteration
5. specific adverbs (describe verbs- e.g. cautiously)
6. a description of what they look like
7. a description of their personality

Here are two fabulous character descriptions of the wicked stepmother in Fiona French's "Snow White in New York". See how many of the success criteria they used to make their writing interesting.

Snow White's step mother is as deadly as a vampire. She's got a prickly, straight thin nose. Her face is half shadowy and she has blood red lipstick. She has the deadliest look, and she has a prickly outfit too. By Harrison L

The wicked queen has red blood lipstick that looks like the middle of a werewolves mouth. Her eyes look like poison ivy and her earrings look like dead men hanging on a rope from a hollow tree. She has spiked clothing that would hurt a lot, and she loves to smoke with a burnt cigarette. By Baileigh Nicholas

Slimy Experiment!

Today we tried to make Mucus Slime. It was a disapponitment! We expected it to explode like a volcano in a bowl (quoting Baileigh Nicholas) but is was like dish washing liquid which we see and feel every night. We added lux flakes, food colouring and hot water together and vigorously mixed them. Here is what it looked like. Boring isn't it!

Terrific Tio Cakes!

Yesterday we had an exciting Tio team cake day. It was the last cake day of the year. There were awesome cakes including a "Minion from Despictable Me", three hamburger cakes, a Willy Wonka cake and many more. Here are some of our favourites!!

UHPS Gala day!

On Saturday Upper Harbour Primary held their very first Gala day! It was a very exciting event and those who came along had fun on bouncy castles, bungy rides, scooter, ponies, not to mention adventuring into the "Fairytopia" and the Haunted House! One of the highlights of the day was the dunking machine. For just 1 dollar the contestant could throw 3 balls at a target. If they hit the target a big bucket of water would fall on the lucky teacher underneath. Here is Ms Craig, Mr Hall (our 2011 DP) and Mrs Millett on the dunking machine!

Volcano at UHPS!

Today we all clambered into the sandpit and built a huge volcano. Then we lined it with glad wrap, and poured baking soda into the lined hole. We dropped a few drops of red food colouring in and then we were ready to make our volcano erupt! It wasn't a violent eruption, but as Liam poured the vinegar into the hole we could all see the chemical reaction as the baking soda and vinegar created carbon dioxide gas bubbles. The "lava" then poured out of our volcano!! Wow!

Billowing Balloon Fun!

Yesterday we did another really exciting Change experiment with Mrs Esquilant. We wrote up a procedure to show our experimental process.




Goal: We want to investigate what happens when baking soda mixes with vinegar.
Equipment:
Small bottle Balloon Vinegar Baking Soda.
Method:
1. Pour some vinegar into a bottle.
2. Use a funnel to tip baking soda into a balloon.
3. Carefully stretch the balloon over the bottle so that the baking soda drops in.
4. See what happens. Talk about why.

Conclusion: The baking soda and the vinegar mixed together causing a chemical reaction. This reaction created a gas called carbon dioxide (the same gas that we breathe out). This gas blew the balloon up. WOW, Science is COOL!

Maths in Term four!

This Term we are learning about shapes, direction and position in our Geometry Unit.

After our pre assessment we analysed our tests and discovered what we as a class still needed to learn.

Our learning intentions for the unit will be as follows-

WALT:

• Identify, draw and make 2D and 3D shapes

• Identify the features of 3D shapes, (e.g. number of faces..)
• Draw cross sections of shapes
• Translate, Reflect, Rotate shapes
• Show the lines of symmetry in a shape/picture
• Follow and give simple directions
• Create and use simple maps
• Describe views and pathways on a map using coordinates.

Here are some of us making 3D models using toothpicks and blue-tac. After we made them we had to count the faces, corners and edges on the shapes.

TYRANNICAL MS CRAIGBULL!

This week we have been reading a shared book called, "Matilda", by Roald Dahl. It features a very scary and crazy head mistress called Mrs Trunchbull. Mrs Tunchbull doesn't like children and she treats the children in her school very badly, picking them up by the ears and swinging them round her head by their plaits. We decided to compare our lovely principal Ms Craig to the crazy Mrs Trunchbull, and shared our comparison map with Ms Craig. Then yesterday, Ms Craig visited our classroom...She wasn't at all like Ms Craig...In fact she was like Ms Craigbull. She made us all stand up when she entered. She growled at the girls who had long hair and she made the children spell words we had never heard of. Mrs Millett got growled at because she hadn't taught us how to spell these words, (which we suspect were not even in the dictionary!). Here are some of our photos of our visit with Ms Craigbull!

Sticky, Yucky Oobleck!

Yesterday we started our Change unit by becoming real live scientists and investigating a very strange 'alien like ' substance called "Oobleck".

Oobleck is a non-newtonian fluid. That is, it acts like a liquid when being poured, but like a solid when a force is acting on it. You can grab it and then it will ooze out of your hands. Make enough Oobleck and you can even walk on it!- Which some of us did!!

Oobleck gets its name from the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck where a gooey green substance, Oobleck, fell from the sky and wreaked havoc in the kingdom.

Welcome to Term 4!

It's great to be back again in Room 16 for our last term together!! It is going to be another busy term with a three S focus- Science, Sewing and Swimming!!

Our inquiry concept is CHANGE, and we will be finding out about how things change by doing a lot of fizzing and foaming experiments! If you have any Science experiment books at home you might like to bring them to school for us to see.

Over the holidays we had a holiday challenge to record the amount of time that we spent Reading, Spelling or doing Maths. Christopher, Baileigh an Albert were the Learning champions with a combined total of 48 hours and 3 minutes learning time! Raha and Harrison were also great independent learners over the holidays. Well done people- here they are with their prizes!!

UHPS Rocks the House!!!

Today it was GPK day at UHPS. We were so excited because we had two rock bands from Albany Junior High School. The bands played for us at lunchtime in the hall, playing some of their own music and also some music from famous rock groups including Guns and Roses. When they started playing we jumped up and down and danced and head banged along to the music! It was really loud!!! Maybe one day children in Room 16 will be in a rock band at Albany Junior High! Thanks for coming guys we thought you were awesome!!!

Prep Market Day!

We had fun at school today! The Tio team had their Prep Market day and we were able to buy products that the Tio team had made. We spent Tio dollars and bought all sorts of fun toys, food, trinkets, and even basket ball shots! Here we are at the market day with all our great buys. Thank you Tio team for putting on such a great Market Day!!!

What respect looks like in Room 16

We have been talking about looking after others today. We came up with this list of things that we think show that we respect others. Please let us know if you see us doing any of these things!!
In Room 16 Respect looks like:

• Letting people go through the doorway first
• Holding the door for some one else
• Helping people who fall over
• Letting others play with you
• Say please and thank you- use your manners
• Listen to the person who speaking without interrupting
• Smile ☺
• Say good morning to the teacher
• Put your hand up when you want to speak
• If someone offers you something, (e.g. sweet) take just one.
• Share with others
• Do as you are told straight away
• Be a good sport if it doesn’t go your way
• Say sorry if you did something wrong
• Ask people if you need to borrow something
• Be honest if you did something wrong
• Keep your things tidy and out of others space

Writing Progress

We are all working hard at improving our writing skills in Room 16. Watch as two of our learners explain how we assess our own Writing and set our next learning goals.

Sharing Our Learning:

In Room 16 we are getting ready to share our learning progress with you on the 14th and 15th of September. What will this look like in Room 16?
In our classroom we will be working through seven different stations and sharing our learning progress at each station. Mrs Millett will be stationed at Station One where we will look at our Student Learning folders and review our assessments which help to form our learning goals. The following stations will be as follows:
Station Two: Active Board Demonstration
Station Three: Writing progress
Station Four: Maths Progress and Maths game
Station Five: Reading Progress

Station Six: E Learning and our classroom Blog

Station Seven: Inquiry learning
What an exciting opportunity for us to share with you what learning looks like in Room 16! We hope you can all make it. Just book a time to visit us in Room 16!

Our Underwater Adventure

As part of our inquiry into "Interdependence" Room 16 and the Tipa team investigated the underworld at Kelly Tarltons.

How does sea life demonstrate Interdependence? We saw examples of sea life depending on each other through food chains, e.g (plant>plant feeders>animal feeders>decay feeders). We also saw interesting examples of ininterdependence with symbiosis (when one species relys on another for survival) with the relationship between the clown fish and the anemone!! It was also interesting learning about the special features that the animals in the ocean have to help them survive.

Tipa Pet Day!

The Tipa team had a very exciting day today! Family pets of all types and sizes came to UHPS for a school visit. The Pet day fitted into our Term's inquiry context- "Interdependence: Animals and Us", and also was a fun way to celebrate GPK day! We had dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, fish, frogs and even a turtle at our Pet day. Thanks everyone for coming along and making pet day such fun!

After our pets went home all of the Tipa children carried on their GPK animal fun with a pet mask parade! Room 16 and the Tipa children did themselves proud making some very cute, cuddly, scary, true to life and funny looking pet masks! Well done everyone:)

TERM 3 Reading

Reciprocal teaching: This term we have started our Reading with a Shared Book called, "Tales of a forth grade nothing" by Judy Blume. The text has been read using "reciprocal teaching" which is a reading strategy where some of the children assume the role of the reading leader in their mixed ability reading group. The students read segments of text and then analyse the text using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting. Watch these children leading their own reading learning!

TIPA CAKE DAY!

Wow! What an exciting day we had on Monday when the Tipa team brought 108 fabulous cakes to school for the Tipa Bake off competition. The Tipa team hosted the fund raising event fantastically and with the support of some lovely mums we manged to raise over $1000!! Well done everyone:) Check out these yummy cakes that we made!

Another Great Holiday story!

Here is another great story from our holidays. Listen to this story to see what happened.

Welcome to Term 3!

We have planned another exciting term for your children as shown below:
TERM 3 INQUIRY THEME: “INTERDEPENDENCE- How can we ensure that our animals and their habitats will be here for our future generations?”
ANIMALIA
This term our major inquiry focus school wide is investigating the concept of Interdependence. We will begin with a Science focus, learning about different groups of animals within their habitats.
We will classify animals according to their types and also according to their locations and habitats around the world. Our inquiry will also take us on a Tipa trip to Kelly Tarltons underwater world where we will investigate the animals found in the ocean! Details of this will follow. Our Tipa Team GPK day pet morning has also been planned for Week 5 of the term. Again, we will give you more information about this closer to the time.
We plan to complete our Inquiry unit with a social studies focus, where we will look at our relationship to animals and our responsibility to look after animals and their habitats.
Check out these links to find out about animals and their habitats:
kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/
www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals.html

Holiday Recounts

We all had a fantastic holiday! Everyone in Room 16 wrote a recount about our favourite holiday memory. Here is one of our recounts about a trip to the beach.

On the fun holidays me, mum, dad and my sister went to a very strange beach. It was surrounded by tweeting birds and spiky grass.
When my warm hand touched the freezing water I felt cold crawling through my body. Just then my dad called, "Come On!" I looked up. There was a beautiful penguin. It's eyes shone and it was a very brave penguin because I patted it. It felt wet and cold like a ice cube. Suddenly I heard a splashing noise- it was a school of fish.
Then I went to explore an old tree. Under the tree there was a bundle of seaweed, and under the seaweed was an enormous mussel shell. I was scared at first but then I realised it was just a shell.

What an amazing experience! Thank you for sharing it with us.

Rosedale Village Visit

Room 16's inquiry unit this term has been all about "Diversity". One of our inquiry groups decided that their social action response for the unit could be visiting the residents of Rosedale Village. The children baked morning tea for the residents and took their goodies and cards to the seniors. They were very well received by the residents and staff of Rosedale Village. Well done children, you made the seniors day!

The Eagle has landed!

On Monday 28th of June the Eagle helicopter visited UHPS. We were very excited to see the helicopter and meet the pilots and police officers. We had lots of great questions to ask Mark the police officer about his job on board the helicopter.

Leadership Day!

Today is Leadership Day. Here we are in our Red Socks. We encouraged all leaders in the community to wear their Red Socks in remembrance of a great New Zealand leader, Sir Peter Blake.

LIFE EDUCATION!!!!

Today was our second visit to the Life Education caravan with Corrine and Harold. We have learnt alot about being happy and healthy. We have learnt how to express our feelings and also realised that we have the responsibility to treat others with respect and care too! Lauren brought her "Harold" to our session too. He is a MIB Harold!!!!